The Nietzsche Channel: Nietzsche: Correspondents

Georg Brandes (1842-1927) (13 letters 1887-1889)
Renowned Scandinavian critic and author, Brandes socialized with some of Nietzsche's friends—notably Rée and Salomé—in Berlin from 1877-1883. After some time giving lectures at the University of Copenhagen, he became a professor in 1902. Brandes' book on Nietzsche, mainly "An Essay on Aristocratic Radicalism," was translated into English by A. G. Chater in 1914. An excerpt from Brandes' April 1888 letter to Sophus Schandorph re Nietzsche:

I have been studying philosophy for a long time. I am studying a German philosopher who is living in Italy. His ideas and mine agree so completely that I find him excellent, the only philosopher alive that I have any use for. We have been in touch with each other for a few years. His name sounds strange and he is still unknown. His name is Friedrich Nietzsche. But he is a genius. Lately I have cast off one of my snakeskins. I have turned from the Englishmen back to the Germans in philosophy. English philosophy seems to me to have reached its peak. But my friend N. has the future ahead of him. I am also becoming more radical, less historic and continually more aristocratic in my aesthetic and historic viewpoints. I don't believe for one minute that great men are a concentrate of the mass, are created from below, are expressions of the flock, etc. Everything comes from the great ones, everything is sifted down from them. I am happy for the strong inner life I am living and for the fermentation of my ideas. Stagnation is terrible and shedding skins is real and essential youth.

Hans von Bülow (1830-1894) (11 letters 1872-1889)
Concert pianist, conductor and critic who studied under Franz Liszt and later married Liszt's daughter Cosima—who left him for Wagner. Von Bülow's harsh criticism of the "Manfred Meditation" devastated Nietzsche.

Jacob Burckhardt (1818-1897) (7 letters 1882-1889)
Born into a distinguished Basel family, Jacob Burckhardt was Nietzsche's colleague and professor of history at Basel. He was the author of The Time of Constantine the Great, The Cicerone "An Introduction to the Enjoyment of the Art Works of Italy," and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Nietzsche sent Burckhardt a copy of each book he published.

Paul Deussen (1845-1919) (39 letters 1864-1889)
Nietzsche's friend and classmate at Schulpforta and at the University of Bonn. Unlike Erwin Rohde and Nietzsche, Deussen did not follow Ritschl, their philology professor, to Leipzig but continued at Bonn and later Tübingen and Berlin, studying theology, philology, Sanskrit and philosophy, especially Schopenhauer. Deussen was a professor of philosophy in Kiel, and a renowned Indologist. His works include: Das System des Vedânta (Leipzig: 1883) and Die Sûtras des Vedânta (Leipzig: 1887).

Theodor Fritsch (1852-1934) (2 letters March 1887)
Theodor Fritsch, anti-Semitic writer and publisher of the Anti-Semitic Correspondence, editor of Handbook of the Jewish Question (1887), Reichstag member in the year 1924 for a National Socialist group. Was on terms with Bernhard Förster. Nietzsche wrote him two hostile letters (March 23 and March 29, 1887), in which he expressed his anti-anti-Semitism very strongly. Thereupon Fritsch attacked him publicly.
— Bio Source: Colli-Montinari, KSA, 14, 740.

Carl Fuchs (1838-1922) (28 letters 1873-1888)
Fuchs friendship with Nietzsche began in the early 1870s. A former theology student, Fuchs was a talented musician (pianist). He was a music director and organist in Danzig.

Carl von Gersdorff (1844-1904) (95 letters 1865-1887)
Gersdorff first met Nietzsche in Pforta in 1861. He assisted Nietzsche in the early 1870s with dictation and proofreading. After 1876, they never met again; Nietzsche broke off all correspondence in December 1877. With the help of Peter Gast, they were reconciled by 1881, and renewed their correspondence.

Karl Hillebrand (1829-1884) (2 letters mid-April 1878 & May 24,1883)
Hillebrand, a former professor of foreign literature, was an essayist and historian who wrote a piece on Nietzsche's first Untimely Meditation on David Strauss entitled, "Nietzsche gegen Strauss" (Nietzsche vs. Strauss). It was published in the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung on September 22-23, 1873, and reprinted in his collected essays Times, Nations and Men (Berlin: 1875).

Karl Knortz (1841-1918) (1 letter June 21, 1888)
Born in Garbenheim, Rhenish Prussia and educated at the University of Heidelberg, Knortz emigrated to America in 1863. He taught in Detroit, Oshkosh and Cincinnati; edited a German daily newspaper in Indianapolis; and finally moved to N.Y. where he took up translating. He wrote Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: eine Einführung (Halle: 1906).

Heinrich Köselitz, a/k/a Peter Gast (1854-1918) (341 letters 1876-1891)
Born Heinrich Köselitz, Gast was a composer who moved to Basel in 1875 to study under Nietzsche and Franz Overbeck. He became Nietzsche's "editor" and proofreader in 1876, after having copied the manuscript Richard Wagner in Bayreuth as a birthday gift for Wagner. A close friend for years, Gast was the one person who was able to decipher Nietzsche's handwriting and worked for Elisabeth Nietzsche in the Nietzsche Archive from 1900-1908.

Mathilde Maier (1834-1910) (3 letters 1874-1878)
A mutual friend of Nietzsche's and Wagner's, from Mainz.

Catulle Mendès (1841–1909) (1 letter (and drafts) January 1, 1889)
French poet, critic, and novelist of the Parnassian school.

Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903) (58 letters 1872-1889)
Author and friend of Wagner, Meysenbug first met Nietzsche at the laying of the Bayreuth foundation stone in 1872. In 1876-77, she rented a villa in Sorrento as a retreat for her, Nietzsche, Paul Rée, and Nietzsche's student Albert Brenner.

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (1846-1935) (535 letters 1854-1896)
Two years younger than her brother, she kept house for him, on and off, from 1875-1878 in Basel. Her disapproval of Lou Salomé and, especially, her marriage to Bernhard Förster—a leader of the German anti-Semitic movement in the late 1870s—caused her estrangement from her brother. Elisabeth established the Nietzsche Archive, first in Naumburg and then in Weimar. Her suppression, destruction and revisions of Nietzsche's writings were finally exposed in the 1930s. Adolf Hitler attended her funeral in November 1935.

Franziska Nietzsche (1826-1897) (612 letters 1854-1888)
Nietzsche's mother, née Oehler.

Louise Ott (8 letters 1876-1882)
Louise Ott (née Einbrod), from Alsace, resided in Paris with her husband Paul Ott, a sculptor. Nietzsche met her at the first Bayreuth Festspiele in 1876.

Franz Overbeck (1837-1905) (238 letters 1871-1889)
Nietzsche's closest friend, Overbeck became a professor of church history at Basel in December 1869. They lived in the same apartment house for five years. From the time of Nietzsche's departure from Basel (1876) to 1897, Overbeck served as Nietzsche's unofficial business manager, and, together with Peter Gast, supervised Nietzsche's literary estate after his collapse in Turin—until Elisabeth took control in 1893.

Ida Overbeck (1848-1933) (10 letters 1879-1883)
Overbeck's wife, née Rothpletz.

Paul Rée (1849-1901) (47 letters 1875-1882)
Rée met Nietzsche in the spring of 1873 in Basel, when Rée was working on his dissertation. He wrote on Aristotle's ethics; in 1875 he received his doctorate and soonafter published Psychologische Beobachtungen. Nietzsche wrote him a cordial letter (10-22-1875) on how he liked these “psychological observations” and their seven-year friendship began. Rée introduced Nietzsche to Lou Salomé in 1882. Read more about Rée at: Nietzsche Hauptseite.

Erwin Rohde (1845-1898) (126 letters 1867-1889)
A fellow philology student with Nietzsche in Bonn and Leipzig, Rohde became a professor of philology at Kiel in 1872 and later a famous classical philologist. In 1878, their friendship soured after Nietzsche's publication of Human, All Too Human—Rohde thought Nietzsche should remain a classical scholar.

Meta von Salis (1855-1929) (14 letters 1884-1889)
Barbara Margaretha von Salis-Marschlins, a/k/a Meta von Salis, met Nietzsche in July 1884 in Zurich. She was the first Swiss woman to receive a doctorate (in history, from the University of Zürich). An ardent feminist, she told Nietzsche that the title of doctor did not mean much to her but "in the interest of the women's question" she was bent on receiving it. Salis visited Nietzsche in Sils-Maria in 1887, and in 1888 gifted him 1000 francs to help pay for the self-publication of his works. In 1897, she purchased the Villa Silberblick in Weimar for the Nietzsche Archive and to house Nietzsche and Elisabeth. Her friendship with Elisabeth terminated one year later and Salis sold the house shortly thereafter to Adalbert Oehler. Elisabeth gained title to the house in 1902. Salis wrote her own account of her friendship with Nietzsche in Philosoph und Edelmann (Philosopher and Gentleman, Leipzig: Naumann, 1897).

Lou von Salomé (1861-1937) (33 letters 1882)
The daughter of a Russian general, she met Rée and Nietzsche in 1882. She went on to marry Carl Andreas in 1887, became a mistress of Rainer Maria Rilke, and, much later, developed a friendship with Sigmund Freud. Read more about Salomé at: Nietzsche Hauptseite.

Ernst Schmeitzner (1851-1895) (115 letters 1874-1886)
Ernst Schmeitzner began publishing Nietzsche's works with the third Untimely Meditation: Schopenhauer as Educator. Nietzsche and Schmeitzner had a contentious relationship. Nietzsche was disgusted that his books were not being properly promoted and that his writings were "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Schmeitzner—associating him with a movement that should be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind." Nietzsche won a lawsuit against Schmeitzner and used the proceeds to purchase a marble slab for his father's grave.

Reinhart Freiherr von Seydlitz (1850-1931) (23 letters 1876-1888)
Seydlitz was a painter and art historian, whose friends included Liszt, Wagner and Malwida von Meysenbug. He met Nietzsche at the Bayreuth Festspiele in 1876. In 1877, Seydlitz spent several weeks with Nietzsche in Sorrento. Their correspondence continued until Nietzsche's collapse in Turin.

Carl Spitteler (1845-1924) (13 letters 1887-1889)
A former student of Franz Overbeck, Spitteler was a Swiss journalist and poet, who received the 1919 Nobel Prize for Literature for Olympian Spring. Spitteler's review of Nietzsche's works ("Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken") was published in Der Bund (Bern, Nr. 1 on 1-1-1888, 3-7). He also reviewed The Case of Wagner for Der Bund (Bern, Nr. 309 on 11-8-1888). Spitteler wrote his own account of his relations with Nietzsche in Meine Beziehungen mit Nietzsche, München 1908.

Heinrich von Stein (1857-1887) (9 letters 1882-1885)
A protégé of Malwida von Meysenbug, Stein came from an officer's family in the Rhön mountains. He was hired by Richard Wagner as a tutor for his son. Stein was the author of Die Ideale des Materialismus (The Ideals of Materialism, Köln: 1878), Helden und Welt: Dramatische Bilder (Dramatic Scenes: Heroes and the World, Chemnitz: 1883) and Die Entstehung der neueren Ästhetik (The Origin of the New Aesthetics, Stuttgart: 1886).

August Strindberg (1849-1912) (5 letters 1888-1889)
Swedish dramatist and novelist, Strindberg became acquainted with Nietzsche's works through his friendship with Georg Brandes. Besides their brief correspondence, Nietzsche and Strindberg also sent each other copies of their works. On one occasion, Nietzsche sent a copy of Twilight of the Idols—now owned by the Stadtbibliothek in Örebro (Sweden)—with the following dedication: "Herrn August Strindberg. Sollte man das nicht übersetzen? Es ist Dynamit. Der Antichrist." (Shouldn't someone translate it? It is dynamite. The Antichrist.)

Cosima Wagner (1837-1930) (15* letters 1870-1889) )
She was the daughter of Franz Liszt, and was married to Richard Wagner. She destroyed all of her correspondence with Nietzsche. Her diary indicates that "Ariadne" received at least three love notes from "Dionysus" at the time of Nietzsche's mental collapse. "My wife Cosima brought me here," Nietzsche told his doctors at the psychiatric clinic in Jena in March, 1889.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) (24* letters 1869-1878)
*Cosima Wagner destroyed all of her correspondence with Nietzsche—and who knows how much between Richard Wagner and Nietzsche.
Do I really have to give you his bio? They first met in November 1868. See Nietzsche's: Richard Wagner in Bayreuth; The Case of Wagner; Nietzsche contra Wagner.

Heinrich Wiener (1834-1897) (1 letter ca. January 4, 1889)
Jurist and "Senatspräsident" in Leipzig.